


memory, and desire

by thegeneralgirl



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Reveal, a messy attempt at exploring grief and forgiveness and love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9283937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeneralgirl/pseuds/thegeneralgirl
Summary: When Adrien is seventeen, Paris' beloved Ladybug dies. Nearly six years later, Marinette Dupain-Cheng comes home.





	1. unbury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (written while listening to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUO6-6HssUc) on repeat.)

 

 **november, 2016**  


_Chat Noir? Are you still awake?_

Eyes closed, Chat murmurs sleepily in the affirmative. Paris is rarely still, but tucked away on the top of the Notre Dame as they are, it’s easy to imagine that the city is a giant of light, sprawled and drowsing at their feet.

The two lapse into another soft silence, but just as Chat is about to doze off, Ladybug shifts away. The bitter November wind is biting, and he whines, instinctively seeking the warmth of her shoulder again.

 _Chat?_ Ladybug’s using her don’t-you-ignore-me tone of voice, and the inflection makes him grin; as if he would ever—could ever—ignore her. 

Opening his eyes, Chat finds Ladybug unclasping something from around her neck, _What is it, milady?_

_Hold out your hand._

Curious, he complies, and Ladybug loops the long cord of leather around his wrist. A small pendant hangs from the end of it, glinting blue-green in the distant city lights. A stylized cat, Chat realizes.

Suddenly, the cold isn’t so fierce anymore.

 _It’s made out of jade. M-my maman is Chinese, and she always wears one close to her heart,_ Ladybug beams, _f_ _or protection._

For a minute, Chat is speechless, and then he struggles to find his voice for a few more, _W-Wow. Thank you, buginette. I swear I’ll never take it off!_

Ladybug looks pleased, _You’re welcome, I’m really glad you like it. I saw it in a store the other day and it reminded me of you._

Chat pauses in his pursuit to examine the pendant from every angle, and glances slyly at Ladybug from under his lashes, _If I’d known you were going to be bringing me a gift, I would have at least brought you some flowers._

Instead of rolling her eyes or ignoring the quip, Ladybug just smiles, _Well, for future reference, my favorite flowers are—_

 

 

 **april, 2023**  


Flashes of lightning set the surface of the Seine ablaze, the rolling rumble of thunder close at its heels. The storm has chased the life out of the city streets, leaving behind a bleached-bone silence.

Contrary to popular opinion, Adrien Agreste thinks, Paris has never been particularly romantic in the spring. April is the cruelest month, after all.

The bank of the Seine is nearly empty, the people manning the souvenir stands all hurrying to pull tarps over postcards and caricatures before the rain begins in earnest. Adrien picks up the pace, tucking his chin into the upturned collar of his coat. The flower shop by the foot of the bridge should still be open, but the old man running it is unpredictable; Adrien’s stood stupidly outside its locked doors on more than one occasion, no matter that he always double checks their hours online first.

It’s an inconvenience that he’s all too willing to risk; this store sells the most beautiful red snapdragons in the entire city.

Lightning splits the air and the rain starts to pour right as the shop’s dingy green awning comes into view. Adrien makes a mad dash for it, ducking under the cover just as the first fat drops splatter on the ground.

He just hadn’t counted on somebody else having the same idea.

“Adrien?”

What timing, Adrien thinks in a daze.

Her eyes are still unbearably blue, even in the dim light of the afternoon

The girl—so familiar, so different, a reminder of a million things that he wish he had a right to forget—hesitantly repeats his name, and Adrien swallows, trying not to remember another rainy Thursday afternoon six years ago.

“M-Marinette?”

 

 

**november, 2016**

_—snapdragons. The red kind._

Chat grins so hard and for so long that his teeth hurt for the rest of the night.

*****

He sleeps with the jade pendant tucked against his chest, and Adrien’s last half-thought is of visiting every single florist in the city, so that next time he can bring Ladybug the best snapdragons in all of Paris.

   
  
**tbc**

 

 

 

 

 

 

April is the cruellest month, breeding  
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
Memory and desire, stirring  
Dull roots with spring rain.

\- **The Waste Land** , T.S Eliot

 


	2. submergence

 

 

**february, 2017  
**

Marinette can’t stand the steady blip of the heart monitor.

She has spent the last two and a half years in an absence of silence, then one day she’d woken up to white walls and white sheets and an absolute quiet, the empty lobes of her ears somehow heavier than they’d ever been before.

And then the beeping had begun.

Swallowing, Marinette tries to lean forward with difficulty, the brace around her torso limiting her range of movement to a few pitiful inches in any direction; the pain of missing the wind on her face hurts worlds worse than her broken body.

_Ah, Marinette—let me get that for you._

Her _maman_ drops the bags she’d been carrying by the door and rushes forward to get the cup of water Marinette had been struggling to reach.

Her _thank-you_ is low and raspy,  but she manages to muster up a grateful smile all the same.

Her papa follows, picking up the bags that Sabine had dropped as her mother settles in the single plastic chair by her side.

Marinette pretends she doesn’t notice the tears gathering in the older woman’s eyes.

Sabine raises one hand to gently trace the white bandages wrapped around her daughter’s head, _啊, 我的宝贝。 妈妈会保护你，妈妈会照顾你。_

Marinette doesn’t understand the words, but she feels the sentiment in Sabine’s touch. She turns her face into her mother’s palm, and silently cries.

The beeping goes on.

 

 

 **april, 2023  
**   
 

Somehow, they wind up at Adrien’s apartment.

It’d made sense at the time; something about the rain and her eyes and the wet clinging to her lashes. His apartment was close, he’d said. She could dry off and he would lend her an umbrella, he’d insisted.

Now Adrien’s fumbling for his keys in front of his apartment as Marinette looks on in amusement.

The irony of the situation is not lost on him.

“Ah, okay—here we go.” At last, he gets the door open, swinging it back for Marinette to enter first first.

They do a stilted dance in his narrow doorway, Adrien doing his best to flatten himself against the heavy oak door and Marinette slipping in sideways. Her arm brushes his chest despite their best efforts, and the heat of her seeps through even his soaked clothes.

“You can just leave your shoes and coat by the door. The bathroom is the third door down the hall—I can bring you some spare clothes if what you have is too wet to wear.”

She smiles at him gratefully, and the familiar curve of her lips is tinder for the sparks of guilt in his gut.

As the bathroom door clicks shut behind Marinette, Adrien stands helplessly in his living room for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. Small, he decides. He can start with something small and easy.

Picking his way through his cluttered apartment to his bedroom, he wonders what Marinette sees. Wonders how she is reconciling the boy she’d known, the friend that had abandoned her, with the man that he is now.

It’d been six years since he’d seen her last.

*****

He leaves the clothes in a neat pile at the foot of the bathroom door after a polite knock.

Draping a spare towel from the linen closet around his shoulders, Adrien gingerly shuffles his way to the tiny kitchen to make tea.

Fill the kettle, turn on the burner; measure out the leaves, take out two mugs. Slowly, methodically, so he doesn’t have to think too hard about who is in his bathroom and what had happened when he’d seen her last.

Marinette appears in his kitchen like magic. She’d been so quiet that Adrien, engrossed as he is in not thinking, hadn’t heard her come down the hall at all. With a start, he realizes that the old shirt he’d given her is the one he used to wear all the time in collège. It fits her well enough, but she swims in his sweats.

“Thank you again, I don’t mean to impose.”

He shakes his head with a smile and holds out a mug of tea in response, leading her to the small, round table crammed in a corner in front of the window. The wind is so strong that it rattles the glass panes.

They drink their tea in silence, Marinette adding the smallest splash of milk from the carafe on the table with a studied intensity that he recognizes. Tendrils of damp, dark hair curls loosely at her temples, a few longer strands escaping a haphazard ponytail to frame the pale curve of a cheek; Marinette is still Marinette, except the familiarity of her face has matured so that the line of her jaw and the bent of her neck have been chiseled out into a graceful half-moon swoop.

Her cheekbones catch the dim light through his windows; Adrien wonders how someone can be so soft and so sharp all at once.

*****

“I’m sorry.”

Marinette raises an eyebrow, “Don’t be.”

There’s no surprise or confusion in her voice, like she’d known exactly what he’d meant; not because she’d been holding it against him, or even as if the thought had crossed her mind. No, she says it like it’s the most ludicrous thing in the world; like Adrien Agreste couldn’t have possibly done anything to be held against him.

Adrien swallows, at a loss for what to say.

Marinette levels an amused smile at him,  “Adrien, I never blamed you. You were...preoccupied. After Hawk Moth…”

She lapses into silence.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she finally says, a stubborn tilt to her head that Adrien recognizes from their days in collège and then lycée.

“I should have at least said goodbye—”

Setting her mug down with a definitive clink, Marinette cuts him off, “Personally, I’ve always preferred a really good  _hello_.”

She smiles, and he’s almost surprised that the sun doesn’t immediately break through the clouds.

“So...Hello.”

A small bloom of warmth unfurls in Adrien’s chest.

 

 

**march, 2017  
**

When her doctors gives the okay for more visitors, Marinette expects to see Alya. Instead, almost her entire collège class troops into her room. _Chloe_ comes.  

They fill the hospital room with laughter and jokes and gossip, and for a moment Marinette feels fourteen and safe again.

After a while, everybody wishes her well, people trickling out until only Alya remains. Perched on the edge of the bed, her best friend immediately launches into the story of how she'd originally planned on only bringing Nino, but Kim had heard from Max who’d heard from Mylene who’d heard from Rose, and so on.

Tired, Marinette is content to let Alya talk when suddenly she realizes the room has fallen silent.

_Alya?_

_Mari...I’m sorry I couldn’t get Adrien to come. He hasn’t been answering our texts and nine times out of ten he's not in class…_

It had stung, a little, when Marinette had noticed that he was missing. They’d gotten closer over the years as Nino and Alya dated, and she’d thought that he’d considered her a good friend…

She supposes it doesn’t matter anymore.

_No, it’s okay. He’s probably been really busy with work._

The look Alya gives her tells Marinette exactly what she thinks about the thin excuse, and the pair falls silent for a minute.

_Have you...Have you heard anything about Chat Noir?_

Alya grimaces, a shadow passing over her face, _He’s been out every night, even though there hasn’t been another akuma since..._ since.

 _Oh._ Marinette looks down at the sterile white sheets, her fingers wearing threads loose from the hem.

 _They can’t fix the damage; she tried, but it didn’t work,”_ Alya pauses, _I still can’t believe our Ladybug’s gone._

Marinette freezes.

Heart hollow, limbs heavy, Marinette looks at Alya and asks, _She?_

_I thought you knew! The new Ladybug. She purified the akuma but she couldn’t fix any of damage that’d been done._

_Ah,_  Marinette whispers. So it’d been over, and she’d never even known.

*****

Later, Marinette feels the weight of her failure crush her. It is a vice around her lungs, and the taste of bile at the back of her throat. It doesn't to let go—Marinette won;t let it.

*****

The Dupain-Chengs leave for China after another month. Alya and Nino see her off at the airport; Adrien does not.

When her flight lands twelve hours later, Marinette turns on her phone to see that she’d received no less than twenty texts from Alya.

Chat Noir and Ladybug had finally beaten and apprehended Gabriel Agreste, alias _Hawk Moth._

 

 

**tbc**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The Chinese translates directly to: "Oh, my treasure. Mother will protect you, mother will take care of you."  
> 


	3. sink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you swallowed everything, like distance. / like the sea, like time. in you everything sank. - pablo neruda, a song of despair.

 

 

**march, 2017  
**

_Stay back, I’ll call you when I’ve got the akuma._

The girl nods jerkily, scrambling to find cover. _This isn’t how it’s supposed to be_ , Plagg hisses in his mind, but Chat Noir doesn’t care. It has been two and a half weeks, and every night Chat fruitlessly chases any trail that might lead him to Hawk Moth. Before, he and Ladybug had simply reacted; now, Adrien hunts.

Vaulting forward on his baton, Chat barely dodges the acrid sludge spewing from the akumatized victim’s mouth. The attacks come less frequently now; the harder Adrien pushes, the further Hawk Moth seems to retreat. 

From behind him, he hears the young girl’s terrified scream. Distantly, Chat recognizes that he should be coaching her, should be helping her gain the confidence that all Ladybugs need.

But while Chat is Ladybug’s partner—two halves of a whole—Adrien’s other half is dead.

And now all that matters is hurting the man who had taken her away.

 

 

**april, 2023  
**

“Can I see you again?”

Marinette pauses with one foot on the threshold, and Adrien immediately blushes, aware of how his words come across, “I mean, you know, I’d like to stay in touch this time. Really.”

He doesn’t even realize how nervous he is until she smiles and the tension leaves his shoulders. “I’d like that. Is your number still the same?”

“Y-Yeah, is yours…?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll text you later.”

Adrien leans against the doorjamb and watches as Marinette makes her way down the steps, nimbly avoiding the puddles collecting in the cracked concrete. When she gets to the bottom she stops, turning and fixing her blue eyes on him, the serious expression catching him off-guard.

“You’re not just asking because you still feel bad, right?”

Smiling, Adrien shakes his head, surprised that he still recognizes the stubborn tilt of her chin from an age ago, “I wouldn’t dream of it, Marinette.”

*****

She does text him, a brief and cheerful thank-you for the umbrella he’d lent her—just in case—and the clothes she’d borrowed. And then:

**_are you free next saturday?_ **

Adrien stares at his phone. Seeing Marinette had been nice—more than nice, it was long overdue, and he’d forgotten what an amazing friend she’d been before they’d lost each other.

But the fact that he’d abandoned her when she’d needed it most still looms in his mind. Marinette hadn’t seemed to want to talk about it, and he’d been more than happy to oblige. His father’s wasn’t the only grave that he wants to steer clear of.

Another ping:

**_alya says she wants us all to get lunch_ **

**_just like the old days etc etc_ **

He picks up his phone and taps out a reply:

 ****_**i’ll be there**  
_

*****

He dreams of her that night.

The sunset lights her up, drowns her in warm golds and oranges, casts half her face in shadow until the slope of her nose and the line of her jaw seem carved from stone.

_Chaton._

When his mother had been alive—around—they’d used to occasionally vacation in Nice. One morning, she’d woken him up before dawn and they’d made their way down to the deserted beach to watch the sunrise. Ladybug reminds him of the sea on fire.

 _Chaton_.

He wants to tell her that he’s sorry. He wants to ask her what she’s trying to say. Most of all, he wants to beg for her forgiveness. But in the usual way of dreams, his tongue and his body are bricks, and all he can do is sink back into the blackness of sleep.

*****

“It’s about time we’re finally doing this!” Alya beams, and her happiness is so infectious that Adrien can’t help but smile in return.

Sitting across from him, Marinette fondly loops her arm through Alya’s elbow, “It _is_ nice. I can almost pretend that we’re still fourteen and all we need to worry about are Mme. Mendeleive’s tests.”

Snorting, Nino leans back in his chair and stretches, “At least we don’t have to worry about akuma attacks anymore.”

The silence is immediate, and a second later Nino realizes his mistake, “Oh, shit. Sorry Adrien, I didn’t mean it like that—I mean…”

“I like being twenty-three,” Adrien says simply.

“Well, twenty-three or fourteen, I’ve missed you dorks,” Alya declares. “Marinette, I can’t believe it took you so long to come home.”

Marinette, now absentmindedly digging through her bag for something, shrugs, “Sometimes it feels like it's still not long enough.”

The table falls silent, and when Marinette looks up, her face pales, “It’s not—no, no. I’m sorry. It’s just the bustle; I’d forgotten how much Paris could be.”

Alya’s eyes narrow, but their food comes then, and Nino loudly exclaims how hungry he is and how amazing each dish seems. Adrien doesn’t miss the thankful look Marinette offers the other man for the distraction.

Conversation soon starts again, this time on the topic of Alya’s latest assignment, but Adrien is far removed. His dinner sits like little more than ash in his mouth, and all he can hear is Marinette’s voice, certain in its softness, saying _it's still not long enough_ , and then the fumbled half-excuse. That tone—the weariness, the resignation—so familiar because he’d been the exact same way in the _after_.  

The red cord of Ladybug’s pendant suddenly feels too tight around his throat, and Adrien quickly excuses himself, claiming that he has to take a call. He barely remembers to bring his phone with him, and when he steps outside, he has to fight to keep his panic under control—to take deep, steadying breaths, like hundreds of hours of expensive therapy has taught him to do.

He knows—he feels Marinette’s eyes on him, across the restaurant and through the large glass windows. Half of him is sure that it’s an expression of condemnation, of blame, even though she’d absolved him of any the last time they’d talked. The rest of him knows it’s likely just concern—maybe she hadn’t even been looking his way at all.

Adrien fiddles with his phone for a minute to make his lie believable, and after one last inhale turns around and prepares to go back inside.

He halts, and stares, and aches, because Marinette had been staring at him after all, but on her face is neither blame nor concern. Instead it’s quiet, intense consideration, and underneath that, pain.

Adrien thinks back to their promise to see each other more often, and he wonders if it’s one that either of them will be able to keep.

 

 

**april 2017  
**

Hawk Moth stares down at Chat Noir’s crumpled body, staff poised above his heart. The last of the green light had faded only seconds ago, and the chilled metal of the staff shocks Adrien through the thin cotton of his shirt.

 _Adrien_.

In the end, Gabriel Agreste stands over his fallen son, and Adrien knows that the look on his father’s face will be one more thing that he’ll never be able to scrub from his mind.

 

**tbc**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edited 7/7/17.


End file.
